


follow up

by thir13enth



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, Dancing, Dating, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Modern Era, all the good fluff stuff, based on a tumblr prompt, ft. Dr. Allura and patient Shiro, now a multichap!, plenty of kissing, upcoming: - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-09 11:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14715278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: “My resident mentioned that you fell off the monkey bars earlier today and broke your right arm?” she asks, tucking her notes into her pocket.He groans to himself. Of course, for that one time he has the most gorgeous doctor taking care of him, he has the most embarrassing story to tell.





	1. follow up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sugarspuncoeurls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarspuncoeurls/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for [shirofied](http://shirofied.tumblr.com) on tumblr, who wanted to see [this prompt](http://shirofied.tumblr.com/tagged/omg-pls-this-with-shLLURA-IM-DYING-HSFJAKSDHFASDHF) in shallura form (well... with modifications. i accidentally made her the attending instead of the intern)
> 
> thanks for all the edits and beautiful things you create. you have such an aesthetic to achieve.

Takashi Shirogane has done many stupid and embarrassing things in his life, but nothing compares to how he broke his right arm that morning while hanging out with Matt.

And if he wasn’t already mortified trying to explain what happened, he definitely was after needing to repeat his story to triage, a few nurses and technicians, several medical people, and, well, now once more again to —

“Takashi Shirogane, yes?” a voice asks, as the curtain surrounding him unfurls.

“Yes,” he says, looking up immediately. “Are you the doc—”

His brain momentarily freezes as he sees her walk in. The first thing he sees are her long thick eyelashes, her eyes pointed downward as she watches her step coming into his curtained-off space in the emergency room. She’s sporting the most simple dark purple blouse, gray pants, and diamond earrings but somehow it looks like the most elegant ballroom attire. Her white coat hangs comfortably over her shoulders, pockets full of doctor things and a few pens hooked over. Her silver hair is tied up in a messy bun, and he watches her tuck a strand behind her ear.

“—tor…?”

She smiles, her sharp blue eyes meeting his, and it feels like a choir of angels are singing.

“Yes, the attending,” she clarifies, immediately coming to his right side.

Her tone is incredibly soothing, and she approaches him so swiftly that her voice sends shivers up his spine. He sits up straighter in his bed, discretely pulling up the blanket securely around his waist.

You know, just in case.

“My resident mentioned that you fell off the monkey bars earlier today and broke your right arm?” she asks, tucking her notes into her pocket.

He groans to himself. Of course, for that one time he has the most gorgeous doctor taking care of him, he has the most embarrassing story to tell.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he confirms.

He doesn’t mention that at the time, he was obsessing about the new reboot of Voltron with a college friend — or that he was enacting a particular scene where the Black Paladin defeats Zarkon in the astral plane — and subsequently lost his balance.

She gives him another warm smile. “Accidents happen,” she replies. If she was hiding her judgment, she was great at it —her tone made it seem as though grown ass adults like him come to the hospital for the stupidest reasons every other hour. She glances down at the splint he was fitted into. “How are you doing right now?”

“I’m doing fine. They gave me some painkillers,” he tells her, watching her pull hand sanitizer out of her white coat.

She rubs it over her palms and between her fingers, and even these casual gestures she does in such a way that mesmerize him.

“They told me I broke it, but aside from that I think I’m all good,” he adds, pulling his eyes off her hands.

She nods. “Seems to me like everything else is fine,” she says, methodically touching his right arm at various points that he can’t keep track of — a press here, a palpate there. Her brief yet gentle touch has some essence of comfort in them, and he can’t help but be confident that yeah, even though he feels like he got hit by a truck and that his arm is very hot and numb, there is absolutely nothing else wrong.

She pulls out a stethoscope from her pocket, popping the earpieces in. “I’ll take a quick listen to your heart and lungs, if you don’t mind?” She gestures behind him. “I’ll start from the back.”

He nods, leaning forward from the bed. She slips the diaphragm of the stethoscope under the thin hospital gown, her other hand taking hold of his shoulder.

“Sorry about the cold metal,” she apologizes, leaning in.

“It’s fine,” he replies. He didn’t even notice.

“Take a few deep breaths, please,” she asks.

He does, but then almost stops mid-inhale as he is suddenly very aware of how close she is to him and amazing she smells. There’s a stray strand of her silver hair tickling the base of his neck. He tries his best to ignore all of this, breathing as steadily as he can as he feels the stethoscope move down his back, and then again along the opposite side of his spine.

“And keep breathing,” she instructs as she guides his body back against the hospital bed. “I’m just going to hear from the front now.”

He nods, trying to keep his cool as she smoothly transfers her hand and the stethoscope up under the hospital gown to listen over his upper torso.

Key word _trying_ — he can nonetheless feel his heartbeat nonetheless quicken and heat rise up over his cheeks. He gulps again, hoping that she notices none of this.

“Okay, thank you, you can breathe normally now,” she says, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief, but she then says, “Let me take a quick listen to your heart.”

This doesn’t help his situation. He holds his breath — maybe that would help slow his heart rate? Honestly, he doesn’t even know if she can even tell, but then again his chest is pounding so hard, how the hell could she not? But maybe everyone’s heart is a little fast when they’re getting a physical exam so just because his heart’s a little amped up doesn’t mean —

“Hm,” she hums, turning her head to the monitor above, as if to confirm what she’s hearing. “A little tachycardic,” she murmurs to herself. She looks up at him, and then just below his eyes like she noticed his flushed cheeks. “But that’s normal,” she concludes.

He thinks he sees a wry smile on her lips. His eyes widen and his jaw drops slightly. Her eyes meet his.

_Fuck._

“Well then, everything else is fine. Do you have any other concerns?” she asks him, standing back up straight and folding her stethoscope back into the pocket of her white coat.

His throat is very dry after all that breathing. He swallows. “No,” he says, but it comes out like a quiet croak, so he shakes his head instead. “Thank you,” he manages to get out.

She gives him a bright smile. “No problem. We’ll have the discharge papers and instructions ready for you soon. Thank you so much for your patience, and I wish the best for you in the rest of your recovery.” She unhooks a pen from her pocket and clicks it. “Don’t forget to schedule an appointment with your primary care physician to place your cast in the next few days, and please feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any concerns over the next few days,” she adds, producing a business card and circling something before handing it to him.

Shiro blinks, seeing that “Cell” was very clearly circled in blue ink.

Wait. Is she…

He hears her take her leave, and he quickly tries to get the last word in. “Thank you!” he blurts before she walks completely out.

She turns her head back at him and winks, before her smile disappears behind the curtains.

Well, he thinks to himself, looking again at her card in his hand. Perhaps what would _actually_ be the stupidest thing he’d do in life is not following up with her.


	2. on call

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> originally i wasn't intending on continuing this piece, but became so inspired to do so by [sugarspuncoeurls](http://sugarspuncoeurls.tumblr.com/) — who has been an amazing supporter of my work for the longest time. she deserves this piece and the world.
> 
> lexi, love, this is for you.
> 
> save me, for this is the first multi-chap i have attempted in a long while.

Shiro thinks he’s done repeating his embarrassing story of falling off the monkey bars after telling the entire emergency room throughout his treatment, but soon after walking out from discharge, his mother calls and he groans to himself, realizing he now has to repeat the same damn story _in Japanese_.

“What happened?! I just saw your text,” his mother immediately blabbers after he greets her, her Japanese piqued and staccato-ed.

“I was just… I was hanging out with Matt, and I fell.”

“Matt?” his mother repeats. “Where? Are you still in the hospital? What happened?”

Shiro methodically goes through all her questions. “Matt, my friend from high school. Remember I went to his house for Thanksgiving once? And I fell at the park. I just got out of the hospital. I broke my arm.”

She zeroes in on his last sentence. “What were you doing to break your arm?!”

“I, uh… was at the park and I fell.”

“You weren’t skateboarding again, were you?! Remember when you fell the last time and now you have that scar on your face?! Grandma was so unhappy!”

“Yeah, I remember,” he sighs, leaning his face into his left shoulder to hold his phone as he signs the discharge papers — an awkward scribble with his immobilized right hand. “No, I wasn’t skateboarding.”

“What were you doing then?!”

He doesn’t know any word in Japanese that can translate monkey bars.

“I was on the monkey bars,” he sighs.

“Mou…n…ki…ba?” she repeats in a flawless Japanese accent.

“Yeah, like…” he groans as he tries to think of the description, deciding to go for the function instead. “Like the thing that kids play on in the playground.”

He hears her sharp inhale, and he knows it’s coming.

“How old are you?!” she berates in English.

He sighs. “I know, I know,” he replies. “I’m sorry.”

He presses his discharge papers between his chest and his arm splint. He silently thanks some of the nurses as he steps out of the emergency room, looking around to see if he could catch a glimpse of the very beautiful doctor whose business card is very safely tucked away in his pocket.

The sound of his mother’s voice interrupts his search. She sighs, switching back to Japanese. “Don’t do that again! You are not a child anymore.”

“I know.”

“What did the doctor say?”

Just at that moment, he thinks he sees the familiar combination of a silver bun of hair, gray pants, and white coat, but she’s turned the opposite direction, talking with one of the hospital staff members. He thinks maybe to linger a little bit to see if he could catch a goodbye but decides maybe that’s too creepy and heads on his way out to the hospital’s main lobby in the direction one of the technicians point out to him.

“It was just a broken arm,” he answers, attention returning to the phone. “I’ll need to go get a cast later, but everything’s fine.”

“Take a picture and show me.”

“Okay.”

“What about your job?”

He takes another breath. Ah, yes. Time for a comprehensive life update. “I’ll find one,” he replies. “I have an interview next week.”

“With who?”

“Some software company. I’m trying for assistant product manager,” he says, frowning to himself at his broken Japanese.

His mother doesn’t seem to care for his grammar. “Okay. Call me right after the interview.”

“Yes,” he promises.

“Don’t forget to take a picture of your arm for me,” she reminds him. “No more playing.” Then just as he’s about to say goodbye, she asks, “You don’t think they’ll see your arm?”

“I think it’ll be fine,” he reassures her. “I’ll just say it was an accident.”

“They’ll think you are wild.”

He smiles. “It’ll be okay.”

“Okay…” she says, her tone still undoubtful. “Good luck, Takashi.”

“Thanks,” he replies. “And I’ll take a picture for you. Bye.”

“Bye bye,” she tells him — in the most adorable Japanese mom way, he can’t help but smile.

He hangs up and awkwardly scrolls through his phone with his left hand to get to Matt’s contact information, finally pressing on the call function. He waits for a couple ring tones before Matt picks up.

“You’re good?”

“Yeah.”

“Need me to drive you back?”

“Please.”

“So what ended up happening?”

“Eh, a broken arm. I’ll have to get a cast later.”

“Okay, you’ll catch me up when I get to the hospital.”

“Sure.”

When Matt drives up, Shiro tucks himself into the front passenger seat, figuring out everything with his left hand. He draws the seat belt over his torso and Matt helps him buckle the belt.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Sorry about not being able to stick around,” Matt apologizes, shifting gears to drive. “I had that conference call to do and I couldn’t trust the hospital to have wifi,  you know?”

“Don’t worry about it. There was no wifi, and nothing interesting happened anyway,” Shiro says, waving off with his left hand. “I literally just got this splint and some painkillers, and then these discharge papers with instructions to keep the swelling down and to see an orthopedist later.”

The corner of Matt’s mouth starts to curl up in a smile. “Did you end up saying you fell off the monkey bars? Or did you lie to protect your ego?”

“Nah, I didn’t see a point in making up a story,” he replies. “Besides, I didn’t know if how I broke my arm was going to affect my treatment or something. I don’t know. I wouldn’t know what would equate to falling off the monkey bars.”

“True.”

“I mean, my mom gave me shit about it.”

“I mean, rightfully so. We were being pretty fucking idiotic.”

Shiro laughs. “Yeah, for sure,” he agrees. “The only thing is that I have to drive my car back to my place from the park.”

“Oh, just give me your keys. I’ll do that,” Matt offers. “You literally just broke your arm. I’m not going to risk you getting into another accident.”

“Thanks.” He raises his hips up from his seat and leans to the left, allowing for a left-hand reach into his right pocket to produce his car keys.

“Just put it there,” Matt says, pointing between them. “Did they make you do a bunch of tests for your arm?”

“Nah, just an x-ray.”

“At least that’s not going to cost too much with insurance.”

“Yeah, I think it should be fine.” He stares out the passenger seat window, falling to silence.

Matt looks back and forth from him to the traffic ahead of them, his smile growing even wider. “Let me guess. The doctor was hot.”

Shiro furrows his eyebrows, shooting a glare at Matt. “What? How did you even—”

“Shiro, you are definitely the most easily read person I know, and that’s saying a lot because Pidge is a pretty easy tell too.”

Shiro scoffs. “You’ve just known me too fucking long.”

Matt cackles. “But the doctor was hot, right?”

“Yeah,” he admits.

“What’d they look like?”

He blinks, letting himself recall as much as he can without seeming as overly smitten about her as he actually is. “Really pretty,” he muses. “I think she’s black. Silver wavy hair, blue eyes. Super cute nose… honestly she looks like a princess…”

Matt interrupts him. “Okay, you don’t have to get all cheesy on me—"

“—and she gave me her number.”

“Oh see, now _that_ I couldn’t read from your face,” Matt says, his voice growing louder and giving a small hoot. “Wow. Wow, wow, wow. This is actually exciting. Are you going to ask her out?”

“Well, I mean she technically just told me to follow up with her if I had any concerns.”

Matt sighs. “I hate to break it to you, Shiro, but I think that technically means she’s just doing her job and _not_ flirting with you.”

“Yeah… that’s what she _said_ but I feel like…” he trails off, shaking his head. “Okay, sure. I don’t know. She circled her cell number as she gave me her card, and maybe she winked at me as she was leaving, but I don’t know.”

“She winked?”

“…I think so.”

“Well…” Matt says, the gears in his head turning. “Maybe it won’t hurt to call and just see.”

“Yeah.”

And so that’s exactly what Shiro does — of course only after about eight hours obsessing over what he’d say when she’d pick up the phone.

But finally when he’s built enough nerves, he calls her, holding the phone close to his face with his left hand. He holds his breath as he waits through a few dial tones, sweating like he’s in a full sprint. It suddenly occurs to him that he actually hasn’t figured out exactly what to say yet, but god damn, whatever the fuck, because he’s already calling her and —

“Hey—”

And what a beautiful sound, her voice. She says ‘hey’ so gently, as if she was waiting for him, that there is no doubt in her mind that she just happened to give him her cell number.

“I—”

“—it’s Allura Altea. Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Leave me your name and message and I’ll get back to you.”

He stops. Oh, he’s such an idiot. That was just her answering machine. And of course. No one would ever start with ‘hey’ to an unknown caller. It isn’t like she would know his phone number before he even calls her right? — unless she actually truly expected him to call?

Then a long hard beep sounds — and he realizes he is completely unprepared to leave a message at the tone.

“Um—” and he _actually hears himself stutter_.

Stop it! Stop talking, he tells himself, to no avail.

“—it’s Takashi Shirogane. I was, uh, your patient the other day,” he says anyway.

Okay, stop it. Seriously.

“I guess I was just giving you a follow up call,” he continues despite his internal screaming. “Thanks for everything.”

Okay, that’s fine. Drop the call now.

“Hear from you soon,” he finishes, pressing the end call button as soon as the last word slips from his lips.

God damn it, Shiro.

He falls backwards into bed, covering his eyes with his hand. He runs his hand over his face and stares up at the ceiling, letting himself inhale and exhale to calm his nerves before lifting his phone again. Unable to think of anything else to do, he texts Matt.

_Just called her._

Matt, ever the quick responder, gets back within a few seconds: _So? Congratulations?_

 _Fuck you,_ he replies.

_What’d she say?_

_She didn’t pick up. I left a message._

_Lol. Loser._

And then, almost as if Matt’s mocking caused the heavens to split open and grant a wish to pity Shiro’s soul, a caller shows up on his screen. The number looks familiar and it looks like—

“—shit,” he curses, getting up and searching for the business card. He picks his body off his mattress, nearly dropping his phone. Once he locates the small white paper, he matches the number on his caller ID to the number right next to her circle.

His heart thumps hard.

“Hey,” he responds, accepting the call.

“Is this Takashi Shirogane?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Thanks for calling me back.”

“Of course. How is your arm? Is the splint alright?”

“It’s good. I took some over the counters to keep the inflammation down,” he reports.

He holds his breath. He still hasn’t figured out what kind of a conversation this is. Maybe she really did just mean for him to call her for purely business reasons.

“I’m glad to hear that. Were you able to get in touch with your primary care provider about referring you to an orthopedist for a cast? If not, I can happily refer you to one of my colleagues.”

“Oh, no, I got in touch with him,” he replies. “They’ll reexamine my arm in a few days.”

“Perfect. Just keep doing what you’re doing and take care not to use your arm too much. We don’t want to displace your bones,” she says. “You seem responsible about all of this though, so I trust that your recovery will come without complications.”

She sounds so official. He almost wants to just give up and call it all off. This was a stupid idea in the first place. He should have never called her.

“Thanks,” he says.

He hears her smile over the phone, and he can just _feel_ how radiant and beautiful it is. “Any other concerns?” After a moment, she adds, “I appreciate you taking the time to call me. I really like to hear how people are doing after I see them.”

“Well, I thought I’d… at least return the thanks.”

She’s patient-zoning him. She totally is. He should just—

“Yes, thank you. I had wanted to hear from you.”

His words get caught his mouth. “I—”

He’s not sure if she’s just being polite and not interrupting him, but she’s eerily quiet on the other side of the line.

Okay, Shiro, just fucking do it. Fuck.

He braces himself and shuts off his brain and just goes for it.

“I… I don’t know if this is appropriate for me to ask, but can I treat you to dinner maybe?” he blurts, just letting himself go. He doesn’t let himself think. “Or maybe lunch? You must have a busy schedule. I don’t know when you’d have the time.”

He swallows, pressing the phone hard against his ear, palms sweaty again.

“Dinner sounds lovely,” she finally replies.

And he lets out his held breath as quietly as possible, feeling his stomach rising into his chest. The sudden surge of happiness coursing through his system is so intense his vision almost blacks out. He can’t help but raise his free arm in victory, but then winces silently when he remembers it’s broken.

He hears some pages rustling in the background, as though she’s looking through a calendar book. “When are you free?” she asks him.

“Oh, I am always available,” he tells her.

He doesn’t think this is the moment to confess that he is currently unemployed.

“I suppose maybe Thursday night works best for me,” she replies, after a moment. “I switch to nights the day after so I don’t need to be anywhere the next day.”

“Yeah, that works for me,” he pauses. He feels like he’s forgetting to ask something… “Oh, did you have a cuisine in mind that you like?”

“I’m fine with anything.”

Damn. For as much as he prepared his opening lines, he nowhere near got as far as to figuring out specific restaurants, or even a plan for in the case she actually did say yes.

Like now.

“Maybe we’ll just figure it out the day of?” he suggests. “Maybe around 8 pm?”

“That works for me. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” he says, his heart suddenly pounding hard. “I’ll pick you up?”

“I would love that,” she replies. “I’ll text you my address?”

“Yes, please.”

“To this number?”

“Yeah,” he replies. “It’s my cell,” he adds right after — something he later regrets mentioning because of how lame that sounded.

“Okay, will do,” she chirps.

“Great,” he says, lingering.

And then after a small moment of silence, she says, “Well then… I’ll see you soon, Takashi Shirogane.”

He feels heat rising in his cheeks again. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon,” he replies.

Before he can make a bigger fool out of himself, he ends the call and then takes a deep breath, curling down onto the floor and leaning against his bed.

He can’t help the big smile over his face.

He did it. He asked the pretty doctor out, and she said yes.

He sighs again. Shit, he hasn’t felt like this about anyone in a very long time. Not since he first fell in love more than a decade ago.

He looks at his phone, thrown onto the floor in his excitement. He smiles again, replaying her voice saying “Dinner sounds lovely” in his head. Dinner sounds lovely. Lovely.

Even the way she said that was lovely.

He can’t believe it. She said yes.

He stares at the black screen for a little longer before picking it back up, thinking to text Matt the updates, but before he even unlocks his phone, he receives a text from _that_ number.

He checks it immediately. This is absolutely _her_ number, and this is absolutely her texting him her address — within a minute of their conversation! He looks her address over, tapping it to lead to a maps application, and studying her location for a moment.

She lives about fifteen minutes away from him. Even the fact that she is within that close of a drive is exhilarating. All he’d have to do on Thursday is leave by 7:30 pm (in case the traffic is horrid because there is no way in hell he’d let himself be late for her) and then drive up to her place and —

But this is the moment Shiro realizes his grave mistake.

His right arm would still be in a splint on Thursday. And he definitely would not want to be driving her in his passenger seat when one of his limbs is completely functionless.

He definitely would _not_ be able to pick her up for their date on Thursday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> admittedly, i was asked to write the allura-side pov of this piece where she's absolutely smitten by shiro, and i didn't quite get there yet, but that part is definitely coming up in the next chapter ;)
> 
> totally cracking myself up writing about shiro's mom roasting him, btw. so relatable.


	3. sign out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the allura pov chapter that you all have been waiting so patiently for:
> 
> (and yes, happy shallura day! i say this two days late but we all know that every day is shallura day anyway)

Allura almost squeals.

But fortunately, she’s able to hold it all in until she’s absolutely certain that the phone call ended.

Then she thrusts her face into a pillow and makes the strangest sound she’s come out of her mouth since she matched into residency.  

Today had been a complete series of emotional chess, starting from the moment she walked in to see him, not at all expecting the patient with the uncomplicated right distal radius fracture in bed 24 was going to be an ultra-cute man with the shyest smile and the most curious streak of white hair over his forehead.

She was caught so off guard she almost couldn’t even appropriately perform the final physical exam to discharge him. His gaze was so intense and he had such an entrapping calm demeanor that made her forget about the hustle and the bustle of the emergency department behind the curtain. If talking to him to recap his injury history wasn’t already making her trip over her words, she absolutely stuttered as she told him the physical exam findings, close enough to smell the light cologne wafting from his skin and see the light stubble over his jaw — honestly thank god none of the nurses or technicians were also present in the room because without doubt they would have dragged her about it in the break room if they had witnessed her.

If she wasn’t wrong in reading him, she took a chance on his fast heartbeat, his jagged breath, and the light blush over his cheeks and gave him all the hints that she was absolutely interested in seeing him again outside of the hospital context.

It was a huge risk — she worried that maybe he was just embarrassed about the whole situation or about his entire story falling off the monkey bars, which actually wasn’t all that ridiculous when it came to the emergency room. Not to mention, when she gave him her number, she was technically still overseeing his health care so it was a little weird in the doctor-patient relationship.

But it was fine, right? Technically she just gave him her business card, which _she_ has done to patients she wanted to follow up even beyond the emergency room because of the complexity of their case.

This would just be another someone she wanted to follow up with. Well, maybe not for the same reasons, but…

She groans, pressing her face into the pillow again, remembering how she circled her cell number and even winked at him — so stupidly embarrassing!

How could she have just put herself out there like that so obviously? What if she just read all the signs wrong and completely misinterpreted?

Of course, now that he _had_ actually called her back, she supposes she made the right decision after all.

She — Allura Altea, three years an attending at Olkarian General with her ass still deep in government federal student debt — had a date.

Or something. He _did_ mention he wanted to “at least return the thanks.”

She doesn’t know. It’s unclear.

Regardless, she was going to get to see him again. She giggles to herself again, uncharacteristically giddy with excitement. She throws aside her pillow and reaches again for her agenda book, looking at the Thursday column. She raises her pen point just below her 6 PM shift, twirling her pen a few times to consider what to write.

“8 pm – DATE!!!!!” is too embarrassing even for her to look at — and then what would happen if she opened her book and one of her other colleagues happened to see the colorful all-caps? She’d never hear the end of it.

“8 pm – Date” doesn’t look right either. And moreover, what if it wasn’t even a date? What if he was just trying to be polite? Although… he _did_ ask for dinner, not lunch. Or at least, he did at _first_ …

She shakes her head to herself. Focus, she tells herself.

Maybe “8 pm – Takashi” would be most appropriate. She writes it in but then frowns when re-reading it.

This makes him seem like a consult call or some kind of referral. Maybe she can doodle in something to make it look more friendly…

Before she knows it, she scribbles a small heart next to him — and immediately regrets it. She scratches it out, but then finds that she ends up just coloring in the heart, making now a very clear and very solid heart next to his name.

“Oh my god, what am I? A high schooler? I’m 33 going on 14.” she moans out loud, flopping back onto her hardwood floor, casting her agenda book to the side.

Hearing her distress, her cat mewls, jumping down from the windowsill and climbing on top of her.

“I know. I must be so annoying to deal with right now, huh, Blue?” she mumbles, lifting her cat off her stomach and rolling onto her side to curl around her.

Allura lays there for a long time, replaying the last hour in her head, regretting lots of things she said. What was she thinking?

Oh, yeah, pull rehearsed statements out like ‘I appreciate you taking the time to call me’ or ‘I really like to hear how my patients are doing.’ For sure, yeah, that’ll really tell him that she’s interested in him as more than just a patient.

And then telling him that Thursday evening would work perfectly because she didn’t have anywhere to be the next day? What was she trying to say?

“I’m such an idiot,” she tells Blue.

But Blue is tired of cuddling and of hearing her shit, gingerly stepping out of Allura’s reach. Allura frowns, watching Blue take residence in a solitary corner, before subsequently doing the splits and starting to lick its hindlegs clean. Allura sighs. Her eyes trail back to her phone, strewn a few feet away, and she crawls over to it, scrolling hesitantly over the last message in her voicemail and looking at his familiar set of unfamiliar numbers.

Is it too optimistic for her to save his number into her phone? Probably. Allura knows better than anyone that romance does not work out the way it does for princesses in fairy tales, no matter how sure a princess thinks she’s found her paladin.

She bites her lip, and then pokes her screen to play his voicemail again, pressing her phone close to her ear. She smiles, hearing the croak in his voice as he starts talking.

_Um… it’s Takashi Shirogane. I was your patient the other day. I guess I was just giving you a follow up call. Thanks for everything. Hear from you soon._

Such a short message. Barely a full ten seconds. It’s not nearly long enough. She plays it again, listening again for that beginning rumble of his voice when he first opens his mouth.

Takashi Shirogane.

She repeats his name to herself softly. She loves the light r of his last name, and how he says it in a gentle flutter. She hopes that she pronounced his name in exactly the same way during their last call, but she knows better than anyone else that her language skills are actually horrid and for as much as her dear father really tried to get her fluent in Spanish and French, she had no chance with the small amount of patience she had and the little tenacity she had to study anything but medicine.

She catches herself with a stupid smile over her face again, and she shakes herself out of lovesickness.

This is ridiculous. She hasn’t felt this way in such a long time.

She checks the time. It’s close to the time she needed to get herself into bed, so she showers, brushes her teeth, and crawls into bed after downing a few extra gulps of water to hit her daily hydration goal.

But it’s pointless. She doesn’t sleep at all, lying in bed well past her bedtime, dreaming of cute smiles and soft hellos.

.

.

The next couple of days is so mundane that when Thursday approaches, she almost completely forgets about the “8 pm – Takashi” line in her agenda until she opens her book in front of Dr. Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe, aka the chief of emergency medicine, and sees the crime-implicating solid heart.

Her eyes freeze on seeing the reminder, and she instinctively presses the pages against her chest.

“So, we’ll have our monthly department meeting on the twenty-third next month instead of the twenty-fifth as usual. Are you on shift that day?” Coran asks, scrolling through his phone, not seeming to notice her flushing and sudden protectiveness of her agenda book.

Cautiously, she flips a few pages forward, seeing a night shift on said date. “I should be off my 7 to 7 by then,” she says. “Meeting still at 7 am?”

“Yeah,” he affirms. “Lots of quality statistics to discuss, so try not to be late.”

“You implying I have some improvements to make?” she teases.

He looks up at her, twirling his ginger moustache and chuckling. “Even if you _are_ one of our exceptional physicians, you know I just need to enforce the same expectations for our entire team.” He nods his chin at her unused computer, monitor black from inactivity. “As long as you’re still picking up patients.”

Ah. Funny he should say that.

“Alright, alright,” she says, swiveling her chair around and shaking the mouse.

“Aside from all of this, anything new going on in your life these days?” he asks, tucking his phone into his white coat pocket and leaning over the counter. “Haven’t been able to properly talk to you ever since the new residents joined us over the summer.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, shrugging. “But honestly nothing too much has been going on.” She clicks on the EMR to assign herself to the 53-year old male with chest pain in room 18 and turns to the stack of EKGs next to her, searching for the matching EKG to her patient.

“Really? No new potential suitors?” Coran asks. “I feel like you were complaining plenty about that in the last conversation I had with you. Something about someone moving into your apartment building?”

She rolls her eyes. “The Lotor guy is still bothering me,” she tells him. “But at least because he likes me I can ask him favors. He takes care of Blue for me when I’m out too late.” She finds the matching EKG and interprets it quickly, writing in left ventricular hypertrophy. “But you know it’s funny you ask me that now because I actually have a date tonight.”

Coran raises both his eyebrows. “See that _is_ exciting,” he declares. “Who’s this date of yours?”

As much as Allura wants to tell Coran, she doesn’t want to mention that her date may just also happen to have been a patient in the emergency room just a couple days ago… and also just happen to have a patient chart with her signature on it.

“Uh… well just someone that I met at random,” she lies, of course, realizing she executed the confabulation terribly.

Coran gives her a look that tells her he knows her bullshit. “At random, huh?” he replies, not prying. “Well, I suppose you’ll tell me at some point.”

She just smiles and shrugs, then choosing that moment to stand and get to her patient in room 18. “Maybe at some point,” she promises him.

“I’m sure I’ll hear about it if it ends up turning out horrible.”

“Probably,” she agrees, waving him a short goodbye as she steps past him.

But for some reason, she has the most undoubtable feeling tonight’s date won’t turn out horrible at all.

.

.

She doesn’t get home until 7:45 pm.

Well, so far tonight’s date is going pretty horribly, she thinks to herself, rushing to get her keys into the keyhole to unlock her door.

Once in her apartment, she hurls herself in, dropping the day’s handbag on the floor and pulling off her shoes as she walks in. She reaches up to pull off her hair tie, shaking her hair out as she makes her way to her closet, already half-undressed.

She did absolutely everything she could in order to optimize getting back home once the clock hit the end of her shift at 7 pm — even going so far as to beg Sendak to cover the last few codes she _technically_ should have been doing so that she could instead rapidly finish closing her charts because she had no option to just close them on her next shift because the next time she’d be in the hospital would going to be more than 24 hours later and Coran would _never_ let her hear the end of it if she didn’t sign her notes within the mandatory time frame and she would _definitely_ be roasted at the next department meeting.

Needless to say, she is frazzled.

She holds her head between her hands, frowning as she looks in the mirror. She looks at the clock on the wall. Damn. She is not going to have time to look nice. Damn. She doesn’t even have the time to take a shower. And _damn it_ , of course this would happen to her on that _one_ night she has a date with someone she thinks she might actually like?

Well, a maybe-date date. Because what if all this time he really is just taking her for dinner out of the goodness of his heart? After all, he did call her to update her about his arm and to thank her… and he didn’t actually bring up the idea of dinner until after she carried the conversation…

She calms herself down. It’s fine, it’s fine, she tells herself. It’s going to be all —

Wait, check your phone, she reminds herself. Because _what if he is already outside waiting —_

She taps her phone screen and sees no notification.

She can’t help but frown. Maybe she is really is getting too excited and hopeful about this maybe-date date. If he liked her, he definitely would be a little early right? Or texted her earlier today to check in?

Or maybe he forgot about their dinner?

Damn, maybe _she_ should have texted him earlier today. But no, she didn’t want to overstep and over-text him either.

She groans one more time and ceases her internal dialogue, telling herself to just focus on her outfit for tonight. It doesn’t matter how much time she has; every single second she has left before this maybe-date date of hers is valuable to get her act together.

She flips her phone to the ring setting and hitches up the volume to max so that there is absolutely no way that she would miss a call, walking back to her closet.

She makes another frustrated sound as she sifts through her outfits. All throughout her emergency training, she was able to get away with wearing scrubs, which was great for her at the when she didn’t have the time to figure out what to wear on the sleep-deprived mornings before a shift but right now, as she looks through her severe lack of nice dating-material clothing, she is regretting her options.

She doesn’t even know exactly where he’ll be taking her. Should she wear something more formal or something more casual? But this is okay. She’s been in this situation at least one hundred times before — there’s a few dresses that can pass for most events aside from an underground rave late at night or a Board of Trustees meeting, but she’s pretty sure that he’s not taking her on any of those extremes.

Her hands stop at a white dress with a floral print — kimono v-neck, mid-arm sleeve, about knee-length — and she looks it over with pursed lips, her eyes tracing one of the pink flowers and its surrounding dark green stem and leaves along the waist.

Her favorite dress. She doesn’t wear it often because she’s afraid of getting it dirty and because otherwise she’d be wearing it all too often.

It was the last gift her father gave her, and the first thing she thinks of when remembering him.

Her thumb rolls over the silky material as she muses for a moment, and then slips it off the hanger, lying the dress over her bed before she pulls it over her head, flipping her hair out from under the collar as she looks at herself in the mirror.

She frowns. The dress fits her well, of course, but her hair is a tangled mess. She sighs and rolls it back up into some kind of a loose bun. It looks almost purposefully messy, some of shorter strands of her hair peeking out from behind her ears, but it also looks like she just got out of a twelve-hour work shift and like didn’t care about this date when she actually really did want to impress him and set herself up in the best way possible for this to be an amazing night.

Maybe at least some light makeup? She rushes over to her makeup bag, pawing through it before a loud ring emerges from her phone.

Her eyes dart to it, her heart rate suddenly jolting. Another ring emerges — a long one that she _knows_ means that someone is calling her and who could it be _but_ him… She rushes over, looking over the caller ID and seeing the familiar set of numbers.

She swallows. “Hello?”

“Hey.”

Her heart flutters again. “Hi!” she says, almost too excitedly, but then clears her throat, mollifying her enthusiasm. “Um, hey,” she tries again, stupidly. She briefly pauses, and then unable to figure out what else to say, adds, “What’s up?”

Silently, she hits her forehead with the palm of her hand. What’s up? Was that the only thing she could think of to say? What was she thinking?

“I just want to apologize for calling you so last minute about this,” he starts.

“Oh, no, I mean, I was just getting ready myself. No rush,” she blurts. She’s not sure why she says all this when she could have just said ‘oh, no, that’s okay’ but then again, so far, she doesn’t have a great history of saying exactly what she wants when he talks to her.

“Oh,” he says, pausing in a way that makes her regret what she said. “Well, I was going to apologize about tonight. I, um… well, I’ve had a bit of a change in plans.”

He says this, and her heart sinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof. i wonder what happened?
> 
> (also if you think that I’m going to get away with this modern AU without putting in as many Voltron references as possible, you are very very wrong. call me out on all the lame ones :P)


	4. handoff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do this weird thing where I can’t write third person omniscient so I change perspectives every now and then but I’m pretty terrible at it, lol sorry in advance. honestly i'm not even sure this chapter makes sense lol.

“Wait... what do you mean?” she asks.

And her voice sounds so disappointed that it makes him realize that “I’ve had a bit of change in plans” can also mean “I’m canceling our dinner.”

Wait! _Fuck,_ he didn’t mean that. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“No, no! I mean, sorry, I mean we’re still on for tonight,” he corrects immediately. “I just.. well, I won’t be able to drive you.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Oh, okay,” she replies slowly. “Do you… want me to meet you somewhere then?”

“No. I mean, I’ll still meet you at your place,” he explains, desperate for words, but he’s tensing up and the words are spilling out of his mouth without abandon. “I just…” and unable to figure out what else to say, he apologizes again. “I’m sorry. When I told you I’d drive to your place, I forgot I was still going to have a splint.” He paces back and forth. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to risk driving you when I only have one functional arm.”

Ugh, he totally fucked up.

“Oh, I see.” She laughs. “Why’d you make it sound so serious?”

He opens and closes his mouth many times as he hears her laughter die down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that we’re not on for tonight,” he blabbers. “I spoke wrong, and I’m sorry about that.” He pauses. “I really want to see you soon.”

“Me too,” she says.

And hearing her say that might have just given him an extra ten years of life. He smiles uncontrollably, pressing his phone hard against his ear.

Then he suddenly remembers he probably should tell her that he’s right outside her apartment door.

“Um, actually,” he then awkwardly adds. “I’m already outside your building, I think.”

.

.

Her heart jumps out of her chest.

Outside her building?! Already?!

Composing herself, she calmly replies, “Oh! Okay, I’ll meet you downstairs. Give me a few minutes.”

“Yeah, sure. Sorry for not giving you a heads up.”

“No, no, no, you’re fine,” she assures him, her left hand grabbing eyeliner and some lip gloss. She leans over her counter, resting her phone on her shoulder and popping open the eyeliner.

“Okay, then,” he says. She hears him smile. And even in the midst of her rush, something about his silence on the other side of the line is calming. She momentarily stops her rummaging to experience the quiet. “I’ll see you soon.”

She smiles, and she can see in her reflection in the mirror that her smile reaches the corners of her eyes. “See you,” she replies.

She waits for him to end the call, hanging on for a second, but he doesn’t. Gingerly, she bites her lip, watching the timer for their call still ticking before she presses the end call button.

What a rollercoaster of emotions, she thinks to herself as she draws over her eyelids with the eyeliner. In the last five minutes, she went from thinking he was canceling their date to realizing he’s been right outside of her door the entire time.

He would be the death of her before the night was over, she was sure.

“Takashi Shirogane,” she says softly to herself. She holds up her chin, unscrewing the gloss and brushing the clear pink wash over her lips. She squeezes her lips together and smile at herself, replacing the makeup into her bag and stands up straight, looking at herself once more in the mirror.

Experience from past first dates warns her to not get her hopes up too high, but she can’t help this gut feeling bubbling within her that tells her she’s going to have a good time today.

And maybe she hopes that by the end of the night, he thinks the same.

She grabs her clutch purse from its hook on her wall, dropping her phone and wallet into it, slipping on white flats as she walks out of her apartment. With every step closer to the elevator, then closer to the entrance of her building, she feels her pulse growing stronger.

She recognizes him right away, even in the dim yellow streetlight. He’s wearing a dark sweater, leaning over the short fence surrounding the small flower garden in front of her apartment, body half-turned toward her building, face turned to the street, left hand tucked into the front pocket of his black jeans, and right arm casually rested against his waist. From this angle, she can still see the unmistakable white streak of hair at the front of his head.

She takes a deep breath and walks out.

He meets her eyes right away, and he straightens, taking a step toward her.

All of sudden, she doesn’t know what to do, but she waves to him as she approaches, taking in more and more of his details — the crinkles around his eyes, the silvery scar line over his nose — as he comes closer. A white shirt peeks out from the collar of his sweater, in a crooked way that makes her want to adore him even more.

“Hi, Takashi Shirogane,” she greets, and then realizes she blurted out his last name by accident because she’s been repeating his full name to herself for the past few hours.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “Hey,” he replies, stepping forward.

This makes her stop in place. She was not planning on coming this close to him, but now he’s within hug reach and she’s wondering if she should hug him? Hugging is not something she does naturally but now she’s standing too close to him for no reason.

But at this distance, she suddenly remembers the smell of his skin, and damn it, she really _does_ want to hug him because she craves it, but she represses the desire immediately because — well, that would be weird of her to do.

“Hey,” she says instead.

They stand there for a moment. He looks like he’s taking her in from top to bottom, and she admits she doesn’t mind this at all. His eyes meet hers and he offers her a small smile.

“So, I was looking around your area and there’s actually a few places to eat around here we can walk to,” he starts, pulling out his phone. “But I was thinking you might have been to them already, and if that’s the case, we can go someplace else and I can call us a ride there.”

She thinks quickly. “Oh, no, not at all,” she replies. “For how long I’ve lived here, I haven’t explored every much around here. I know there’s an Italian place, an Ethiopian place, some kind of Middle Eastern place, and maybe a Korean barbeque place too.”

“Yeah, I saw that on my way here. What are you feeling?”

She wants to say Korean barbeque, but she’s been told by colleagues that Korean barbeque was never a good place to take first date.

Does she really care? Not really.

“How are you on KBBQ?”

“Love it.”

“Yes! Perfect,” she says, clapping her hands together.

He looks at her with a soft gaze and an uneven boyish grin. “Alright, ready?”

She looks at him once more, half-dazed by his smile. She secures her clutch over her shoulder.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

.

.

“So how long have you lived here?” he asks.

He’s really only making small talk because otherwise he’d find himself distracted just watching her walk beside him. She’s walking next to _him_. This beautiful doctor is next to him and he’s taking _her_ to dinner and honestly his brain can’t fully process that yet.

“Hm…” she replies, musing a moment.

He likes the way she tilts her head up and slightly purses her lips when she’s thinking. He likes how the ends of her hair bob as she steps forward, ever so gracefully. He likes everything about her, really. She’s even more beautiful than he remembers — her white dress and matching shoes and tied-up hair — he doesn’t even have the vocabulary to describe what she’s wearing or how she’s wearing it but whatever she’s doing, he really likes it.

“In this specific building? About two years,” she continues. “I first moved to this city to work in Olkarion General about three years ago but for the first year, I was crashing between sublets trying to find a proper place to stay.”

“Yeah, it can be hard to find a lease around here.”

“But then I found this apartment and if everything works out, the plan is to stay here for the rest of my life — or at least as long as Olkarion General will keep me.”

He laughs. “I’m sure they’ll keep you around.”

He likes the sound of her staying here.

“What about you? Where do you live?”

“Oh, not too far from here. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Beta Traz District, but I’m right around there.”

“Heard of it,” she says. “Haven’t ever been.” She turns and gives him a joking frown. “Doctors don’t get out much. That’s why I haven’t even been to this place that’s literally down my street.”

He shrugs, chuckling. “That’s fine. I don’t get out much either.”

He still doesn’t know where to put his hands. He can’t help this excited teenaged feeling of wanting to reach forward to hold out her hand, and suddenly he realizes he’s been looking for too long down at her hands. He looks up to her face in case she’s noticed, but she doesn’t seem to know at all, having the most calm and peaceful expression on her face, but then he realizes that now he’s just staring at her face – so he keeps his eyes to the sidewalk and his left hand deep in his pocket…

…only to later find his eyes veering to the gentle swish of her dress as she walks and how the light folds of her dress fall over her legs as she steps forward.

“I’m glad you suggested walking somewhere nearby,” she starts, looking over at him.

He meets her eyes briefly, but then realizes that her blue eyes are way too pretty for him to look at without blushing. He focuses on continuing her conversation.

“Oh, yeah, I mean, thank you for being open about doing this,” he says. “I, um, wish I had a more impressive reason to walk instead but I have a lame excuse of a broken arm.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “No, it’s good. Walking is great for the cardiovascular system,” she says, but then quickly adds, “And for your mood.” She pauses. “Well, for a lot of things, really. I mean, it’s great for the environment, too. Well — compared to us driving. I mean, you driving me.”

Seeing her trip over her words, he looks over at her and he sees her bite her bottom lip.

He hides a quiet laugh. She’s adorable, and he loves it.

“It’s a great temperature outside,” she says quickly, looking over at him.

 “Yes,” he agrees, not letting her catch his gaze.

“Speaking of which, how is your arm anyway?”

“Oh, well, I was able to talk with my doctor today,” Shiro quickly recalls. “He just got me in to see an orthopedist for tomorrow but he didn’t mention anything bad about my arm. Just told me to try not to use it until tomorrow.”

“You look like you’re doing fine,” she says.

“I’d gladly take your second opinion,” he jokes, but then he realizes that might come off weird. “I mean, I don’t need you to check or anything. I don’t want to be that person asking you about random things just because you’re a doctor.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry about it,” she assures him. “Everyone does it anyway. And I’d rather that then people self-diagnosing based on internet articles.”

“Yeah, for sure,” he laughs.

They fall back into silence.

Damn. He didn’t mean to make this awkward. Why did he even say anything about his arm in the first place? She’s not at work right now and she probably wants a break from treating people — and he’s not even her patient anymore!

…or is he? Technically? It doesn’t feel like she’s treating him like a patient, but at the same time, maybe she’s just getting dinner with him because she was being nice after he, as a patient, offered.

He looks over at her and she is completely expressionless. He breathes in and continues walking, looking down briefly at his phone to check how far they have still to walk. He glances at her once more, and she still carrying the same neutral expression.

She’s not interested in him, he’s pretty sure. If she actually _is_ interested in him, she’d definitely be more… flirty? … with him, right?

Besides, who is he kidding? Doctors must get this all the time. People wanting to thank them and such. This dinner must be pretty much all the same. And besides, this doctor-patient relationship thing is all his own wild fantasy, isn’t it? Isn’t it all just an overused romantic trope in those Korean dramas his mother watches?

Did she even wink at him in the first place? He’s not even sure if she had even winked at him when he was in the emergency room. He _thinks_ she winked at him, but… well, even if she did, did that mean she was _actually_ inviting him to call her? Some people just wink because they’re being friendly.

But she _did_ accept dinner with him… right?

Stop it, Shiro, he thinks to himself. Now you’re just extending the silence and making this even more awkward…

Or maybe he should just ask her to be clear, his brain suggests. Just ask her what exactly this dinner is for.

He shakes his head.

No, don’t be stupid, Shiro. Don’t kid yourself, she’s just being nice.

He turns to her. “Hey,” he says, without thinking. “Um…”

Damn it, Shiro.

.

.

Allura cannot believe she started talking about medicine.

Why is she like this? Why is every other sentence she says has something to do with being a doctor or about some organ system? She hates it.

Doctors don’t get out much. Walking is great for the cardiovascular system? How is your arm?

Don’t say anything medical-related, she reprimands herself. At least through this dinner.

But then in these past seven seconds of awkward silence, she’s been unable to say anything _not_ medical related. She’s been thinking of conversation topics but all her funny stories are about medical school, her medical colleagues, or random fun facts that she discovered in recent literature on PubMed.

Grimly, she reminds herself this is probably why she hasn’t had any successful dates with anyone since undergraduate.

Not to mention she had actually gone ahead and briefly looked over at his arm — which, although covered by the long sleeve of his sweater, looked visibly less swollen and a lot better even just a few days later — and told him her assessment, as if this dinner was a follow up visit. He even had to _tell her_ that she didn’t have to check up on him.

Ugh, she is _not_ doing well on the dating front right now.

She sneaks a furtive glance at him. He doesn’t look at all concerned or anything — honestly, she can’t tell what he’s feeling right now.

Probably awkward. And she doesn’t blame him. She made this entire conversation about medicine so far, and he’s probably not interested at all in what she’s talking about.

What kind of doctor goes to dinner with their patient anyway? He must be thinking about how awkward this all is because he probably didn’t expect her to say yes when he offered dinner. She’s had plenty of patients offering her things, but she’s never actually accepted anything — after all, it wasn’t quite right to accept the gifts and kind gestures. But she said yes, and now, he was probably going through all of this just because he was nice enough to follow through with it all.

Suddenly he looks over at her.

“Hey, um…”

She looks back at him. “Yes, Takashi?”

He hesitates. She sees him lick his lips. “Just to be clear… I’m not taking you to dinner as my doctor or anything,” he says. “In case I wasn’t clear.”

“Oh, well, no, no,” she replies quickly. “I’m not doing this as your doctor or anything. I thought we would just go out for dinner as… like, you know, friends or something.”

Wait.

“Oh, okay,” he says, nodding. “Right.”

Wait. Did she just…

She just friend-zoned him.

Damn it, Allura.

.

.

Friends or something.

Right. _Friends_ or something.

That’s fine. That’s okay, right? Friends can date, right? And friends can become something more, right? That trope is in his mother’s Korean dramas, too, right?

Shiro really likes her. He really _really_ likes her, and he wants so bad for her to like him too — and it’s crazy. He likes her so much even though he doesn’t know a single thing about her. But she has such a magnetic personality… is it wrong for him to want to spend as much time with her as he can?

This is fine, he convinces himself. At least they are having dinner.

Maybe if tonight goes well, he can toe the friend line.

Shaking the thoughts out of his head, he composes himself as the KBBQ restaurant comes into sight, stepping forward to open the door for her as they approach.

Despite what seemed like a very busy night, they’re immediately seated by the server, who grabs a couple of menus for them. They’re placed off to the side in booth seats and Shiro quickly takes a seat, watching Allura take her place across from him.

“This was a great idea,” she says, a little excitedly, pointing at the grill at the center of the table. She looks around at the atmosphere of the restaurant. “I haven’t had KBBQ in months, and I’ve actually been kind of craving it.”

He laughs. “Yeah, me too.”

She pours water from the pitcher in front of them into the two empty glasses, sliding one over to his side and taking one for herself.

“So, Takashi, tell me a bit more about you,” she says, folding her hands over each other and leaning over the table.

He tries not to notice how her cleavage grows as she does this. That would be terribly inappropriate of him, but —

He clears his throat, keeping his eyes on hers, even though his peripheral vision is offering him temptations. “Well, I grew up in Kerberos. I went to Puig for university and have moved around a little bit after that, but a year ago, I came here to Olkarion and yeah, I’m here now.”

He’s purposefully avoiding talking about what he’s doing now — frankly, because he isn’t doing anything now. And fortunately, she doesn’t focus on that last detail.

“Really?” Her eyes pop open. “I went to Puig University — did you…?”

“Oh, yeah, same. Class of ’07?”

She shakes her head. “’08,” she replies. “I’m fairly surprised I never met you while we were there.”

He shrugs. “It was a big school, and I chose to live off-campus.”

She nods. “Hm… and I was a hardcore premed, so unless by chance you happened to be doing anything biology-related or volunteered for the student clinic, I’m pretty sure I had no chance of meeting you.”

“Not at all. History major,” he says.

She smiles, her eyes dropping to the table. “I wish I met you back then, Takashi.”

Never mind what she just said, about wanting to meet him back then — this is maybe the _third_ time she’s said his actual name.

Strangely, hearing her say his first name makes the whole conversation sound incredibly intimate. After all, _no one_ calls him Takashi, and he doesn’t even remember hearing it in his past relationships. And when _she_ says it so gently in her soothing voice…

“Shiro,” he suddenly blurts, then clarifies. “You can just call me Shiro. No need to be formal or anything.”

“Shiro?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he replies.

Maybe he’s being super Japanese about it. Like the whole you-called-me-kun-and-not-san thing. Whatever it is, he’s being weird about it.

“It’s short for my last name,” he explains. “Shirogane. People usually call me that.”

She arches her eyebrow. “Well, what if I choose not to, Takashi?” she asks, mischievously.

He almost gets a boner.

“I— I mean, you call me whatever you want to,” he says, choosing not to elaborate that he may have just discovered he has a weird first-name-basis kink. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, reaching for his glass of water.

“I’m kidding,” she says, also holding her water out in front of her and taking a sip from the straw.

“Hi, good evening, sorry to interrupt you two,” a server says, coming up to their table, laying out some side dishes out in front of them and turning on the grill in the center of their table. “I was going to take any orders you had?”

“Oh, sorry,” he apologizes, completely forgetting about it all. He looks to Allura, but she has the same oh-crap-we-forgot-we-were-ordering expression. “Um,” he says, flipping over the menu. “Maybe we can start with bulgolgi and the saeng galbi?"

Allura nods, looking over the options. “And maybe pork belly and uh… if we could get an order of japchae?”

He’s about to compliment good choice in food, but then he feels a familiar vibration in his pants pocket of someone calling him. He reaches over and grabs his phone out of his pocket, seeing the kanji.

Oh, his mom.

He slowly stands to his feet.

“Anything else? You can get up to three things at a time.”

“Oh, maybe just add beef brisket on both of ours,” Allura answers for the two of them, noticing the phone in his hand and him getting up.

“Sorry, I have to take this,” he mouths, making his way out of the restaurant.

Oh, of all the times for his mother to call.

.

.

Allura likes him.

She really does. She knew she thought he was cute, but somehow just in the last hour, she thinks she wants to get to know him much more.

It’s all too bad she more or less friend-zoned him earlier.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did she do that? Maybe she should clarify and tell him she wanted to date him —

But wait, when she recounts back to when she friend-zoned him, he didn’t seem upset or surprised at all… so maybe he’s already on the friend-zone page… except the only problem is that she’s not on that page…

This is fine, she convinces herself.

In fact, this might turn out for the better. Maybe by the end of the night, she’d realize she actually doesn’t like him at all. And then that would make things easier.

Somehow though, she doesn’t think she _won’t_ fall for him — because she already has, and she can’t stop it.

She watches him now as he returns through the restaurant, laughing with one of the restaurant employees that stops him on the way back to the table. He has some kind of charm disarms anyone, and she is just as susceptible.

As he approaches, she pretends she hasn’t been staring the entire time. She takes a piece of kimchi and chews it, pretending her eyes have been on all the side dishes and waits until he comes back to the table for her to lift her eyes up to him.

“Sorry about that,” he apologizes.

She shakes her head. “No, don’t be sorry about that. You needed to take that call.”

Sitting himself back down, he shrugs. “It really wasn’t that important. My mom just called because she wanted to see another picture of my arm.”

She laughs. “I don’t blame her. If my son broke his arm, I would probably be the exact same way.” She lets her laugh fall quiet. “You’re close to your mom?”

He wrinkles his nose. “It’s something I’m embarrassed to admit.”

“Hm,” she says, nodding quietly.

“Are you?”

His question strikes her out of the blue. “Am I…?”

“Close to your parents?”

“Yeah…” she replies, looking up from her hands and smiling at him. “Yeah, I was.”

He looks back at her, concerned. “Oh, I’m sorry… did something happen?”

She shakes her head. “My mom passed when I was younger but I was always close with my dad. He passed a few years ago.” She sips on her straw and flits her eyes up to gauge him. “It’s okay, you don’t have to apologize for asking. You didn’t know.”

His mouth twists. “Well, yeah, but… I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to get that deep that fast.”

She laughs. “Well, I asked about your mom first,” she reminds him. “And I didn’t know anything about you so I think I risked just as much going into that question.”

He gives her a careful smile. She really wants him to be comfortable and not intimidated. She really hopes he doesn’t just see her as ‘the chick whose parents died.’

In almost perfect timing with their silence, their server stops at their table, delivering their orders. She watches the dishes get placed onto the table, the clink of the dishware the only sound between the two of them.

She thanks the server then quickly takes the prongs. “So, what keeps you busy these days?” she asks Shiro, dropping some meat onto the grill. “Work or hobbies or anything?”

“Well… I’m actually on the search for a job,” he explains slowly. He follows her lead and drops his own meat, onto the grill, immediate sizzles emerging from underneath.

“What were…” Quite honestly, she doesn’t expect him to be unemployed and she tries her best not to sound judgmental or like she expected him to be doing anything. “What were you doing before?” She corrects. “Well, if you were doing anything before?”

He doesn’t seem to take offense. “Air Force,” he replies simply. “I quit though.”

She doesn’t expect this either. “Oh, uh,” she struggles, trying to see if her past interactions with veterans from her VA rotation in medical school would help her. “Was there a reason you quit?”

He shrugs. “I didn’t mind the first few years, but then the last two years, I hated with a passion and I wanted out. I felt like there wasn’t much freedom, and there was a lot of bullshit.”

She nods. “I see.”

There’s not much more there that she knows how to get into or even wants to get into. Suddenly she’s not completely confident about making good conversation with him, and it’s a feeling she’s not used to. She stirs the straw in her glass for a little bit.

“Sorry for asking, and maybe I don’t know,” she starts on another subject. “But are you Japanese? I’m just assuming because Shirogane seems Japanese.”

“No, you’re right,” he says, and this question seems to break through. “That’s better than most people assume.” He nods his chin in her direction. “And you? How do you identify, if you don’t mind me asking?”

She shrugs. “Black,” she says. “Or African-American. Nothing special.” She tilts her head. “Do you speak Japanese at home, then?”

“I’m Japanese. I have to speak Japanese,” he groans. “My mother would never let me go without it. Japanese at home. Japanese school on Saturdays.” He looks at her. “What about you? Do you speak any other languages?”

She wrinkles her nose, smiling. “No, not really. And I don’t count the Spanish I took in high school. I’m quite language-less aside from English.” She recounts a little back. “Although, one of my high school friends and I made this elaborate language we used to communicate to each other while passing notes in class.”

She sees him almost spit out his drink, laughing. “This must be before texting became a thing.”

She smiles wide. “Yeah. I’m sure you remember back then.”

“Oh absolutely,” he says. “I mean so few of us in high school had phones that could actually text, and the texts were so much money per character that we didn’t even try to transition from paper.”

“And then there were the cool kids that had the Blackberrys.”

“Don’t even remind me about how snobby they were.”

She laughs. “I was only cool enough to get a Blackberry when I was in college,” she says. “But I’m glad I hung on until then because the smart phone revolution started and by then my family hadn’t invested in all the ‘new’ tech was ultimately surpassed.”

“Yeah. I’m still waiting for holograms to come out.”

“I’m sure a more intelligent alien species out there has already invented some form of that,” she says, taking a bite of the acorn jelly on the side dish. “It’s only a matter of time for us.”

“You believe in aliens?” He looks at her, amused.

“There’s infinite possibilities out there in the universe,” she replies easily. “How can you not?”

“Whatever the doctor says,” he teases.

She rolls her eyes. “What about you?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t say I’m a hardcore believer,” he replies. “One of my roommates in undergrad really sold me on it though. He was studying astrophysics or something and he used to tell me all the time about alternate universes. He had a ton of formulas and equations that proved all of it.” He thinks to himself for a moment. “Honestly, he was kind of weird. He’d always be calculating a ton of probabilities of things and probably had some form of agoraphobia. He never left the room.”

Allura considers. “Not leaving the room,” she says, nodding. “That sounds a lot like it.”

“Yeah,” he says, before changing the subject. “So. You still need to tell me about this elaborate made-up language you used to write notes to your friend in class.” He leans back into his chair. “Aside from majoring in history, I low-key studied a lot of linguistics in my undergraduate, so I’m not letting you off the hook for that detail.”

“Oh no, you won’t find it interesting,” she replies. “It was literally just English with character substitutions. We just didn’t want anyone reading our messages.” She softly confesses. “I actually still remember it from A to Z.”

He shrugs. “Memory works in the strangest ways.” He watches her for a few seconds, with a thoughtful look. She tries to focus on cutting her broccoli, pretending she doesn’t notice at all. “Was there a name for this language that you had?”

She clears her throat, smiling to herself, thinking back. “Altean,” she says, looking up at him. He’s listening intently, and she takes a deep breath and carefully explains, “Well, it was called Altean because it was my last name.” She pauses and clarifies. “It was just a code that two of us shared. This is a little embarrassing, but we thought we would get married and that my last name was the better one to take on, so that’s why the language is my last name… because we thought we’d share that.”

He softly smiles. “Romantic,” he says. “No wonder it had to be secret.”

“Yeah,” she says. She looks at him, and he’s still looking at her intently. “We didn’t eventually get married,” she adds with an embarrassed smile. “It was just a high school romance. She —” She quickly corrects herself in a split second. “We broke up freshman year of college.” She continues to add more substance. “You know, long distance is hard and all.”

She holds her breath and watches him. She had been so comfortable talking to him that she completely slipped.

“It happens,” he says, and if he had heard that, he was good at acting like he didn’t care.

Or maybe he didn’t actually care that she’s dated girls.

She struggles to find something else to say. “Ah yeah,” she eventually agrees.

She watches him flip around a strip of meat on the grill for a little bit before he makes a weird scooping motion with the chopsticks and plops the meat on his plate.

“Damn,” he mutters. She hears it.

“Struggling a little bit there?” she teases. “Chopsticks not your thing?”

He looks at her like she’s shitting him. “My left hand is getting there.”

“Do I need to teach you?”

It’s just a joke, but he actually arches his eyebrow at her. “Yeah, sure, go ahead,” he challenges.

She doesn’t, sticking her tongue out instead. “For some reason, I feel like this should be the opposite of how it should be going. You know, you being _actually_ Asian and all.”

He smiles, waving off his left hand. “Honestly, I’m about to just fuck it and use my right arm.”

“No, no, no!” she reprimands him, laughing. “You need to keep that arm as still as possible until you get your cast tomorrow!”

“Whatever the doctor says,” he teases again. He tries for a piece of pork belly this time, instead getting the ends of his chopsticks stuck between the slits of the grill. He tries a couple more times.

“Here,” she says, automatically, reaching over the table and grabbing the piece in her own chopsticks and raising it up to mouth level.

Her eyes meet his eyes and then suddenly, she realizes she’s feeding him.

He seems to realize it, too. His eyes don’t leave hers.

Her heart shivers. “Um…” she hesitates, looking away from him and back at the pork between her chopsticks. “Careful, it might be a little hot,” she finally says. She tries her best not to look at his eyes and waits, staring at the bite of meat.

His head ducks down and his lips come into view just behind her chopsticks. He slightly angles his mouth to better accommodate the morsel and opens his mouth. She cautiously places the meat forward between his lips and waits until he withdraws before she releases the pork from her chopsticks.

She exhales her held breath, immediately going back to the grill to pick up some remaining pieces of meat, placing a couple on her plate. Feeling a light flush on her cheeks, she keeps her face down to the table, trying to pass all of this as normal as possible.

“Uh, thanks,” he mumbles, doing the exact same.

Suddenly, his left hand is much more capable with the chopsticks.

A few silent minutes between them pass.

“S-Sorry if that was weird,” she can’t help but say.

He looks up at her and smiles, shaking his head. “I _did_ need the help,” he replies. “Otherwise we would have been here all night.”

“Oh, yeah, that was definitely something I was trying to avoid.”

“What?” he teases. “You’re not enjoying my company at all?”

She narrows her eyes, a playful smile on her lips. “Nope. Not in the very least bit,” she declares.

But that is very much a lie, and Allura is sure he knows it — even if he was that dense and immune to sarcasm to not know otherwise, he would definitely know with how many more hours she passes with him for the rest of the night.

.

.

Shiro’s cheeks hurt from laughing. They’ve been hurting.

He thought dinner might not have been going the right way after his mother interrupted and after he accidentally uncovered both her parents passed away, but the conversation very quickly led other ways and he discovered much more they had in common than not.

And she’s hilarious. Blunt and straightforward, and not afraid to just tell it how it is. He loves that.

As he laughs off this last remark she made, he checks his phone and is surprised to find just how late it is — half past midnight.

She seems to note the time as well, and they both agree to get going, calling over their server to split the bill so they can be on their way.

“I’ll walk you back, yeah?” he suggests as they’re walking out of the restaurant. He’s trying his best to hold onto as many minutes with her as possible. It’s been a while since he’s felt this desperate to spend time with anyone.

“Sure,” she replies, taking her purse and following up behind him. She reaches out to him, and for a moment, he thinks — with widened eyes and held breath — that she’s going to take his hand, but her hand reaches past his body and pulls open the restaurant door handle in front of them.

He quickly tucks away all the thoughts he has about her fingers intertwined with his.

She opens it wide and a light spray of mist falls over his face.

“Ah,” she announces, almost nonchalantly. “It’s raining.”

He sees a few clusters of people huddled within the restaurant’s overhanging roof to avoid the rain, hearing some chatter about calling an Uber or how far away their parked car is.

He turns to her, taking out his phone. “I can call an Uber or something.”

Allura looks at the rain. “Nonsense, it’s not that bad.”

She looks back at him with a bite of her lip, and then she suddenly reaches and takes his left hand. Before he can even process it, she’s locked her fingers between his.

“Come on,” she says, walking off at a quick pace.

There’s many things that Shiro’s done without thinking — and this, running into a storm with a woman he’s very much enamored with, isn’t very much different — but like all things that he’s done without thinking, he very quickly realizes doing so was a very bad idea.

In fact, it only takes two steps into the rain to register this.

“Oh my _god_!” she screams, probably realize the same. She starts laughing, her pace slowly as she almost falls over giggling, clutching her stomach.

“This is _definitely really bad_ rain,” he sputters, unable to keep himself from laughing with her. He pulls her forward, keeping her moving forward as she tries to catch her breath. He squints some rain out of his eyes and sees an open convenience store a hundred steps up ahead. “We can probably get an umbrella in there.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, with another laugh.

He’s sure his shirt is almost completely soaked through, but for once in a very long time, he doesn’t care at all. His heart is light and unburdened. She picks up the pace after another short episode of laughter and he lets her guide him until they reach the convenience store, rushing inside with the frazzled excitement of teenagers at prom. The door rings as they enter, both tracking drops of rain in.

He hasn’t felt this carefree in ages.

“Sorry,” Allura apologizes loudly to the cashier as they walk, dripping, through the narrow store. “You don’t happen to be selling umbrellas, are you?”

When the cashier nods and points behind them, she pulls her hand out from his and reaches behind her, placing a large umbrella on the counter and reaching into her purse for the wallet.

“Oh,” Shiro realizes, reaching his hand back to his wallet. His mind is still foggy and his hand is still warm from her touch.

“No, no, I insist,” she says, with a slightly embarrassed smile. “I was the one that decided to run out into the rain like a crazy person, after all.”

“Okay,” he agrees, returning a smile. He watches a small drop of water fall off a stray strand of her hair and fall onto her shoulder.

No, he’s pretty sure _he’s_ the crazy one to be still running after her.

.

.

“Here, come,” she commands him, walking out of the convenience store as she opens the umbrella wide. She waits for him to stand next to her before she starts walking again. “This should keep us much drier,” she says. “Much better idea than my other idea.”

He laughs softly, reaching his left hand up to comb over his bangs, feeling some drops of water falling over the back of his neck. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I hope your clothes are okay.”

“It’s just water,” she says, looking up at him. “Come closer so you don’t get wet,” she tells him.

He’s already very close to her, and he can’t imagine closing any more distance — but she shifts her umbrella more to his side and presses her arm right up against him, her right shoulder bumping into his left side.

“I’m fine,” he insists, his hand almost automatically reaching up for the umbrella handle. He takes it to relieve her, but she doesn’t let go, and his hand overlaps hers as he takes the umbrella — and he swears he feels a spark between their fingers.

His eyes shoot over to look at her, but she just smiles up at him, continuing their walk like everything is normal and like they do this every day.

And for once, under the same umbrella and in the same space, he feels at ease. The downpour all around them and all the traffic rushing by on the street fades away, and all that is left is her arm brushing against him and her occasional sigh, the smell of her hair and rain, the warmth of her hand against his.

It feels like a small separate world made of just him and her — and he wants this peace to last forever.

All too soon, she slows to a stop and Shiro quickly realizes, much to his sadness, that their walk is coming to an end. She leads them to the front of her apartment’s main door, steering with the umbrella.

 “So…” she asks as they come under the overhang of her apartment building. She collapses the umbrella and hands it off to him. “How did you get here?”

“Oh, um,” he says, retrieving the umbrella. The start of the evening feels so long ago he’s almost completely forgot. “I walked.”

“Hm,” she nods, looking off to some empty space as she fishes out her keys from her purse without looking, in that same way she did whenever she was thinking about something.

Adorable.

“How about I drive you back to your place?” she suggests.

He wants to say no, but she doesn’t let him refuse her offer, tapping him from behind and pushing him forward as she turns the key to her apartment lobby.

“Wait inside here,” she tells him. “I’ll go upstairs and get my car really quickly. I have to drive it down from parking. I’ll meet you on the street here.” She points in front of her building, leading him to a bench inside.

He sits himself down and finds her looking down thoughtfully at him.

“Actually, you’re soaking wet,” she says. “Just come up with me. I’ll get you a towel to dry off.”

“Uh,” he hesitates, but his body stands back up under her command.

“Come on,” she calls to him, slapping the up button to the elevator. The elevator dings and she slips inside, keeping her hand between the doors to keep it open.

And of course, like any lovesick person, he follows right along.

As the elevator doors shut, he finds himself again alone with her. He looks over at her, catching her gaze, and she smiles at him. He returns the smile.

Half-soaked and her hair wind-and-rain swept, she still looks like the most beautiful thing he’s seen in ages. The tops of her shoulders and sleeves are drenched in rain, and some parts of the hem of her dress have rain spots over them — but her bright smile reaches her twinkling eyes and she looks like she’s never been happier.

He has the strongest urge to just rush over to the other side of the elevator and kiss her, but he knows better. He knows he shouldn’t read into the fact that she spent hours with him over dinner, even helping him with his chopsticks at some point. He knows he shouldn’t read into the fact that she held his hand before running out into the rain or that she’s inviting her up to her place.

God, he likes her so much that he’s not thinking clear. All of this — everything from her okay to dinner to her driving him to his apartment — she isn’t doing any of this because she likes him, he’s thoroughly convinced. She’s just doing all of this out of the goodness of her heart. She’s a doctor, after all! She chose a career dedicating her entire life to helping people.

She’s the prime example of an incredibly friendly, undoubtedly selfless, and utterly perfect person — none of everything tonight could really mean anything and he _really_ shouldn’t kiss her, as much as he wants to.

Besides, they’re just friends, right?

He breathes in slowly, watching the numbers climb up to the eighth floor.

The elevator dings again, and he follows behind her as she walks down the hallway, stopping in front of an apartment. Her keys jangle as she turns her keys, and he hears a faint mewl coming from the other side of the door.

“You have a cat?” he asks her, as she leans against her door to swing it open.

“Yes,” she says, immediately crouching down to pick up the cat that comes up to her as she enters. She turns to him and rocks the cat up and down in her arms. “Her name is Blue.”

“Blue,” he repeats, finding himself with nothing else to say.

“You like cats?” she asks him, slipping behind him to close the door behind him.

“Yeah…” he says.

Allura smiles and then carefully drops Blue back to the ground, who approaches him curiously. He puts down the umbrella, putting out his hand to the cat’s nose. Blue sniffs him cautiously, before rubbing her face over his fingers. Allura watches their interactions for a moment.

“She likes you,” she observes.

Shiro looks up at Allura, continuing to pet her cat. He smiles up at her. “I like her, too.”

Allura smiles.

“I’ll get you a towel,” she says, slipping away to her bathroom.

Shiro lifts her head to look around. He doesn’t know what to think of it — it’s about as normal of an apartment as he would expect any apartment to be. There’s a few extra-large textbooks scattered over her couch, a leftover mug on her coffee table, and a small scattering of plants on the window.

“Here,” she says, coming back to him with a white hand towel.

He stands, taking it with his left hand and one-handedly dries his head. “Thanks,” he says, when finished.

She snorts when seeing his messed-up hair. She takes the towel, reaching up to smooth out his hair, then rubs the towel over his shoulder, carefully around his neck.

He realizes he’s holding his breath, watching her so close to him. When she takes the towel back, she looks up at him.

He could kiss her.

She smiles. “Let’s get going, yeah?”

He swallows, nodding. “Yeah,” he agrees, watching her walk off to drop the towel in the bathroom.

This is the second time he’s thought to kiss her tonight.

He _has_ to stop thinking this. That, or get home right away before he risks doing anything stupid.

.

.

“I’m surprised you walked this far,” she says, pulling up to his apartment building.

She looks at the time. It’s late. Incredibly late.

“It must have taken you a quite a while if it took us fifteen minutes to get here,” she continues.

He shrugs. “Some doctor I know told me walking is great for the cardiovascular system.”

She smirks. “A good doctor?”

“Oh, the best one I know,” he replies.

He watches her eyes lighten as she takes the top of the steering wheel with both hands, leaning over and tilting her head onto her hands, giving him a tired but content smile.

He needs to go. It’s been a long night.

He looks at the umbrella at his feet. “Here,” he says. “I’m leaving the umbrella with you. Thanks so much for everything. You really didn’t need to do all this.”

“Take the umbrella so you can at least stay dry getting to your door,” she insists.

“Alright,” he says, placing it between his knees. He starts to turn his body to open the door with his left hand, but he pauses, looking up back to her.

She looks back at him, quietly, still leaned against her steering wheel.

A beat.

“Um, thank you,” he says.

She smiles. “Of course.”

He nods, and then turns back to the car door, opening it and slipping himself out of the car, snapping open the umbrella and holding the stem between his shoulder and neck as he waves goodbye to her and shuts the car door again.

Should he have kissed her?

He should have kissed her. He should have fucking kissed her.

Damn it, Shiro. You missed your chance.

No, it’s okay, he reminds himself. This would have been the third time he thought to kiss her tonight, and he’s not supposed to be even thinking about kissing her.

“Hey, Shiro?” she calls out to him, rolling down her car window.

His heart stops.

“Yeah?” He turns to her, unable to resist. He holds the umbrella out between them, ducking down slightly to meet her level.

She smiles. “I had a really good time with you today,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees, returning the smile. “Me too.”

“And keep the umbrella,” she insists.

Before he can protest, she adds, with a wink, “You might need it the next time you take me out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they are literally just awkward nerds but at least allura’s pulling through at the end, hah. also I’ve definitely put in a bunch of random tropes in there so forgive me.

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me  
> tumblr: ahumanintraining  
> twitter: napsbeforesleep


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